NFL player with one hand can make a spectacular one-handed catch in Madden 20

Aug-29-2019
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Shaquem Griffin doesn’t have a left hand. He was born with a condition that prevented it from developing fully, and his parents later had it amputated. That hasn’t stopped him from playing in the NFL, where he is a second-year linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks. And it also doesn’t stop him from making one-handed catches.

Griffin’s player model is a fully accurate representation of his real-life arm, but it appears that — for physics purposes, anyway — no exceptions could be made for him in the video game.

We can konw how bonkers, if not routine, one-handed catches have become in Madden since Odell Beckham Jr. graced the cover of Madden NFL 16 four years ago. You don’t even have to take control of a receiver or defender and hit triangle/Y (“aggressive catch”) to see them; AI players pull off one-handers with regularity, enough that the commentary team of Charles Davis and Brandon Gaudin will gently mock the trend.

It follows, though, that EA Sports didn’t or couldn’t develop special code for Griffin, beyond just adjusting his CTH rating. This isn’t likewhere his switch pitching was an entirely new skill that the developers had to accommodate. EA Tiburon probably just masked an altered left arm over his model — because it’d be really disrespectful to give him two full arms — and then left his playing ability the same as that of any other 69-rated ROLB.